The Day No One Died
by Rowena Zahnrei
Summary: There’s more to this universe than one planet, Martha Jones, the Doctor said coldly. I have to look at the bigger picture. And so do you... A brief, five part story on why, sometimes, you can't go back. Even if you have a time machine. Please Review!
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own _Doctor Who_. Please don't sue me or steal my story!

NOTE: Hi Everyone! I'm back from New Mexico and my sister's graduation and my cousin's graduation and my first week of summer classes--yeah, it's been a really crazy couple of weeks--and I have a new story! It came to me in bits and pieces while I was traveling around from here to there and back and I scribbled it out Kurt Vonnegut-like (_Hocus Pocus_ style) on little scraps of paper whenever I had a chance to sit and think--which wasn't very often! Like him, I didn't have access to writing paper of uniform size and quality, so the "chapters" of this brief little story aren't of anywhere near equal length. Because of that, it's slightly disjointed, but upon reflection I think that actually adds to the story, so I'm going to post it as I wrote it. In odd little chunks. It's somewhat dark, and I've had to make some guesses as to Martha's character since I haven't really met her yet, but I hope you like it just the same! I'm going to get some work done on Ch. 9 of _Nowhere Men_ during the long weekend, so hopefully I'll be back with an update there in a week or so! I'd cross my fingers in hope, but that would make it hard to type. Thanks so much for your patience with me, I _really_ appreciate it, and I hope you enjoy this story:D

**The Day No One Died**

**By Rowena**

The soldiers were coming.

She could hear them outside, feel the vibration of their heavy boots on the floorboards, the deep thrum of their tanks rolling up the twisting mountain roads.

They were close. Ever closer. Closing in.

Repressing a shudder, the girl licked the tip of her pen and stared off into space, deep in thought. The story was almost over. Her story was almost over. She just had to write the last few lines. She had to think of the best way…

The best way to say goodbye…


	2. Too Late

"We're too late."

Martha Jones looked up at the Doctor's pained face, wincing slightly at the emptiness in his voice, the darkness behind his eyes...

"Well, maybe we don't have to be," she offered weakly, attempting a smile. When he glanced at her, she shrugged, gesturing to the TARDIS standing behind them. "Time machine?" she prompted.

The Doctor looked at her a moment longer, then turned away. "No," he said flatly. "It's too late. We're part of events. Here, at this moment. We can't go back."

"Then what's the point?" Martha asked with a frown. "What's the good of being able to travel to any point in time and space if you can't travel to any point in time and space?"

"You don't understand!" The Doctor spun on her, his brown eyes flashing in sudden anger. "Do you think I make this kind of call arbitrarily? Do you think I don't want to go back and stop these idiots from destroying themselves? Their people?"

Martha was rather taken aback. "Well, no. Of course not. But…but then, what is the TARDIS for?"

The Doctor closed his eyes, shaking his head. "Martha, Martha… If we go back, we change the present. This moment, this discussion we're having right now will never–_can_ never have happened! Don't you see? If we go back, it would be because of what we've seen here, now. But if we go back, there would be no here and now to prompt us to go back in the first place!"

Martha made a face. "No wait, stop," she said. "I'm not following. Don't we _want_ things to be different? Isn't that the _point_ of going back to change things? To make sure that what happened here never happened in the first place?"

"It's a paradox, Martha!" the Doctor snapped, his frustration sharpening his voice like a knife. "The effects could be catastrophic."

"Worse than this?" Martha exclaimed, throwing an arm out to indicate the smoldering wasteland all around them. The Doctor refused to look.

"The space-time continuum is a delicate thing, Martha," he said, his eyes firmly focused on her. "Long ago, my people worked to keep it in balance. But now, there's no one left to guide its flow. Only me. And I can't risk a paradox. Not again. It's too dangerous."

"So, you're just going to stand here, then," Martha frowned. "Do nothing. Allow an entire people, an entire planet to die out just because you don't want to upset the balance?"

The Doctor glared, his jaw set. "There's more to this universe than one planet. I have to look at the bigger picture," he said coldly. "And so do you."

Martha stared at him. "I don't believe this. Bigger picture? Do you know what you sound like?"

"Yes!" he shouted, his voice harsh and angry. "Yes, I know exactly what I sound like. I sound like a Time Lord. Because that's what I am, Martha Jones. The last of the Time Lords. My responsibility extends further than a single planet, or a single species. There's more to my life than gadding about the universe fighting monsters and stopping madmen from reshaping history in their own image! Sometimes, to preserve the timeline, the monsters have to win. Sometimes, good people have to die. Great people. People who could have made a difference, people who could have changed things for the better. People I care about! But that's not my call to make. I can't save everyone! In order for the universe to keep going, there are times when it is best not to interfere."

"And you're so sure that this is one of those times?" Martha demanded. 

The Doctor shifted his glare to his ship, his teeth clenched in a snarl. "Not me," he growled. "I wasn't the one that landed us here."

Martha looked confused. "But you– Oh, don't be ridiculous. You can't blame your ship for…"

But the Doctor wasn't listening to Martha Jones. His fists clenched, he slammed his way into the TARDIS and stormed up the metal ramp to the console. Martha scurried after him, leaving the door open on the smoking landscape beyond.

"WHY?" he roared, turning a full circle as he glared around the room. "Why here, now? Why did you have to land us here?"

There was no audible reply. Martha hadn't expected one. But the Doctor seemed to slump into himself, sinking into the battered seat with his unruly hair clutched between his fingers.

"Doctor?" Martha prompted cautiously. "Doctor, are you all right?"

The Doctor didn't lift his head. "We have to go back out there," he said quietly.

"What? But why, Doctor–?"

"Because," he said, looking up at last. "We were brought here for a reason. It is too late to stop this planet from destroying itself. But there is still one thing I can do."

"What's that?"

The Doctor rose from his seat and took her hand. "Come with me," he said.


	3. Asleep

"She looks like she's asleep…"

Martha's voice was soft and choked as she crouched down beside the still body of the young girl. Unlike the other bodies that littered the ruins of the old house, this one showed no sign of fire damage.

"The wall protected her," the Doctor spoke up, his voice rather hoarse. He cleared his throat. "Solid stone. Kept her safe from the firestorm, but not from the soldier's bullet."

"How could this have happened?" Martha smoothed the girl's deep purple hair back behind her ears, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. "She can't be more than nine years old. What kind of person could shoot a little girl?"

"The same kind that could push a button and detonate an entire world," the Doctor frowned. "Fanatics. Willing to destroy themselves and their entire species in the name of an ideology no one will remember now they're gone."

"You said we were brought here for a reason," Martha sniffed. "But there's nothing we can do for this little girl. For any of them."

The Doctor looked at her, then turned his gaze to the little pink-skinned child with the rich purple hair…and the thin book she still held close to her chest.

"Actually," he said softly, crouching down to gently pry the notebook from her protective arms. "There is."


	4. Words

The publisher was reluctant at first. Readers nowadays, they wanted escapist fiction, he argued. They wanted romance, drama, cookbooks. Not the disjointed thoughts and fantasies of a dead child from an extinct planet.

But the Doctor was persistent.

And in the end, he won out.

"As always," Martha Jones had smiled.

"Don't I wish," the Doctor had replied, looking tired.

It took a while for the book to get noticed. Really noticed, beyond required reading lists for students and the occasional book club review. It took a galactic war, a depression, a war, and then another war before the little girl's message truly began to take hold.

But once it did…


	5. The Bigger Picture

"Martha Jones, welcome home," the Doctor beamed, holding his arm out with a flourish as she stepped out of the TARDIS. "It's the year 7372, and the Earth, here, is the hub of an interstellar Republic which encompasses most of the Milky Way galaxy. It's an era of peace and economic prosperity, not to mention the template for what will one day become the Great and Bountiful Human Empire."

"Fantastic," Martha smiled approvingly. "But why are we here?"

"This is a very important day," the Doctor grinned enthusiastically, taking her hand as they bounded down the alleyway toward the bustling city center. "Not just for Earth, but for the entire galaxy."

"Oh yeah?" Martha said, intrigued. "What happened?"

"Oh, it's unprecedented," the Time Lord smiled over his shoulder. "Absolutely unprecedented in the entire sweeping, tumultuous history of humanity. And we've come to sit back and soak it all in."

"Sit back? You?" Martha smirked. "You mean there's no sinister behind the scenes plotting going on–no evil genius or twisted supercomputer we have to thwart?"

"Not today," the Doctor grinned, coming to an abrupt halt in front of a large holo-screen at the center of a noisy, densely crowded square. Martha took a moment to look at him, marveling at the difference in his manner and expression. He was usually so distant. The aloof Time Lord, as she saw him, always alone, always…somehow…sad. Wistful, almost, nursing a wound the young medical student could never hope to heal. But now… Now he was grinning like a little boy, practically giddy with energy. His brown hair was virtually standing on end as he bounced on the balls of his feet, impatiently awaiting the next news broadcast with wide, eager eyes.

It was a rare, precious thing for Martha to see the Doctor this way. He looked so young, so exuberant. With a sudden twinge, she wondered if this was how he had been with Rose. Not the distant Time Lord she knew, but an eager guide, brimming with life and wonder and the promise of the universe…

"Look! Look, Martha, it's coming on!" he crowed happily, giving her hand a quick, impulsive squeeze. "You'll understand now."

"Understand what?" she asked.

"Just wait and see!" he smiled, turning back to the screen.

A blue-skinned woman with solid yellow eyes was speaking, but her voice was muted, her words scrolling along the bottom of the screen at a quicksilver pace. Martha found she couldn't read each word individually, she had to sort of blur her eyes and catch the sentences as they flew past. The Doctor didn't seem bothered, or even to notice.

"And in other news," the woman was saying, "Ms. Anthea Harper of Santa Fe, New Mexico celebrated her 200th birthday today. Mr. Halalal Columbki of the Alpha Centauri Space Base and Pfaa Phaaz, the algae colony currently based in Queensland, Australia, have both reached the impressive age of 597 Earth standard years which, according to the Guinness Book of Galactic Records, leaves them tied for oldest living sapient being."

"Guess they haven't met you," Martha smirked, giving the Doctor a playful nudge. The 900-plus-year-old Time Lord shot her a look. "Pay attention," he said.

"And this day is noteworthy for something else, too, isn't it Joe," the blue-skinned woman smiled, turning to face a middle-aged human man seated to her left.

"Yes, it certainly is, Grikmilli. And Congress Representative Brzezinski will want to make particular note of this," he nodded to the camera, smiling rather smugly at his little in-joke. "The Hitchhiker's Guide Instant-Access Encyclopedia Company has announced, and the Intergalactic Records Office has confirmed, that this day–May 25, 7372–marks the first day in human history that no one has died."

Martha's eyes widened and she glanced at the Doctor, but his attention was fully glued to the screen.

"But can that really be true?" Grikmilli was asking when Martha managed to catch the rapid flow of the words again. "It's a big galaxy out there. When you consider all the hospitals–the accidents, fires, floods, even hold-ups–"

"I know it seems incredible," Joe smiled. "But the officials have confirmed it. For the first time in human history, violence and illness has dropped to such a degree that for a full 24-hour period, not one person has died."

Grikmilli raised her delicately painted eyebrows and blinked her vertical eyelids at the camera. "Well, you heard it here first, folks," she said. "And that's it for our 'On the 8's' News Update, but we'll be back with full coverage tonight at 11. Now, be sure to stay tuned after the break for Channel 42's exclusive coverage of the 356th Galactic Cup, presented by our own Dafydd Thomas..."

"Well?" the Doctor said, breaking Martha's concentration. She blinked a little to restore the moisture to her dry eyes and let the whizzing captions scroll on without her.

"Well what?" she asked, rather confused. 

The Doctor stared. "No one died, Martha!" he exclaimed. "For the first time in human history! No one died!"

"Yeah, I'll admit that's pretty impressive," Martha said.

The Doctor sighed and shook his head.

"What?" Martha demanded. "What is it? Am I missing something here?"

"Remember what I told you about the big picture," the Doctor said.

"Yeah, but I still don't see–"

Martha cut herself off, her memory suddenly catching up with her mouth. "That girl," she said. "All those months ago." She blinked up at the Doctor, her eyes wide. "Doctor…was that it, then? When you said we were sent there for a reason…?"

"It's the bigger picture, Martha Jones," the Doctor told her, his dark eyes sweeping over the throngs of people striding through the square, laughing, chatting, scowling, smiling… "But it has to start somewhere. Like any picture, it starts with a single brush stroke, a single pixel. In this case," he pulled a slender paperback from his pocket, "in the poignant words of a frightened child. A child who refused to give up hope even when she knew the end had come."

Martha nodded. "Her final farewell," she said, taking the book and flipping to the end, running her hand over the smooth page. "How could she have known, Doctor? How could she have known someone would find her notebook, when she saw her planet burn?"

The Doctor shook his head. "The point is," he said, "her words touched people. Forced them to think. Made them take a good look at themselves through her eyes and, for once, instead of getting all defensive, they realized they didn't like what they saw."

"So now, centuries later–"

"Humanity has finally reached the day when no one died," the Doctor finished for her, taking the book back and replacing it in his coat. Martha smiled softly and nodded her head.

"Well, it certainly took long enough," she commented. "But how many people had to die for us to make it this far?"

"What counts is that you did make it," the Doctor told her, giving her hand a light, reassuring squeeze. "You make it, Martha Jones. And for me, right now, that's all that matters."

**The End**


End file.
